Changes Come to Civil Proccess

With a goal of reducing the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office budget to the best of his abilities, Sheriff Jeff Dawsy is announcing changes in the way his agency will serve civil process, effective Oct. 1.

“Process” is commonly defined as a paper of writing issued by some court in the exercise of its jurisdiction. These documents include divorce papers, liens, restraining orders, evictions, subpoenas, plus other official court documents.

Up until now, deputy sheriffs typically served all enforceable as well as non-enforceable civil process on the intended recipients.

Enforceable civil process includes enforcement of child support, domestic violence injunctions for protection, child custody pickup orders, landlord/tenant actions and seizure of property relating to civil lawsuits. Non-enforceable process includes summonses, complaints and subpoenas.

A recent administrative order signed by Chief Judge Daniel B. Merritt, Sr., of the Fifth Judicial Circuit supplements the service of process by county sheriffs and provides an alternate means of service by private certified civil process servers. An approved list of certified process servers is maintained by the circuit, which includes Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties.

These individuals are authorized to serve non-enforceable civil process on any person found within the circuit where the process server is certified whenever a civil action has been filed against said person in Florida’s circuit or county courts.

Here in Citrus County, sworn deputies will continue to serve all enforceable process, in addition to any court documents originating from the State Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices and the Florida Department of Revenue.

Starting Oct. 1, private citizens or attorneys looking to have non-enforceable process served will need to contact a private process server. The approved list of civil process servers in the circuit who are currently certified is viewable on the Sheriff’s Office official Web site at www.sheriffcitrus.org.

Sheriff Dawsy is anticipating these changes will save his agency approximately $140,000. One added advantage is two or three of his civil deputies can be reassigned to positions that are currently vacant.

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